微軟半世紀轉型歷程個案研究

Abstract

多家百年企業在近十年中，因轉型不及而消失在舞台上，像是諾基亞 (Nokia)、柯達 (Kodak) 等。曾經於1990年代引領個人電腦狂潮的微軟，在21世紀初期也經歷了失落的十年，沒有趕上網路和行動浪潮，以致在手機和社群市場上節節敗退，反被Apple、Google、Facebook一舉超越；而微軟現在的業務重心─Azure雲端服務在2008年推出時，競爭對手AWS早已布局市場多年，微軟再次錯過首班列車。但在2014年微三任執行長 Satya Nadella上任後，微軟開始急起直追；七年後的今天，微軟再度成為市場的關注焦點。

本研究以微軟為個案，回顧其近半世紀的發展歷程，在每一個科技時代中微軟的因應之道為何？微軟在這一波的轉型當中做了哪些事情，能夠扭轉其頹勢？本研究試圖以 Satya Nadella 所提出的文化轉型為主軸，找出其成功轉型的要素，以及其臺灣分公司所面臨之在地問題。In the past ten years, many century-old companies have disappeared from the market due to insufficient transformation, such as Nokia and Kodak. Microsoft, the giant who once led the personal computer frenzy in the 1990s, also experienced a lost decade in the early 21st century. It has been surpassed by Apple, Google, and Facebook in one fell swoop in the mobile phone and social media markets, as it failed on catching up with the Internet and mobile waves. When Azure Cloud Services, which is currently Microsoft's main business focus, was launched in 2008, the main competitor AWS had already been in the market for many years. Once again, Microsoft missed the first train.

However, Microsoft began to speed up after Satya Nadella, the third CEO of Microsoft, took office in 2014. 7 years later, Microsoft has once again become the focus of the market. The research takes Microsoft as the case study and reviews its development during the past half a century. How did Microsoft face each new technological era? What has Microsoft done to reverse the declining trend in the recent organizational transformation? This research attempts to take the cultural transformation proposed by Satya Nadella as the main axis, and finds the key elements of success in the transformation process and the issues that Taiwan subsidiary might face.